Bloodline Limit
by Hikaru Irving
Summary: For all his careful planning, everything had blown up in Itachi's face ... quite literally. Every bloodline limit had its consequences for the user, but neither Itachi nor Kisame had expected Mangekyou to lead to blindness in such a manner.


A/N: Diego, this is all your fault!

Disclaimer: I own nothing and make no material profit from this. It is purely fan made fun.

Also, this will be a two or three shot. Probably three.

--

"Augh! Dammit!"

"Itachi-sama, are you all right?"

"Just gimme the damn towel! Ah my GOD--"

"Here, right here!"

"Dammit dammit dammit!"

Well. This certainly wasn't anything that anyone expected. Even though he was a supposed genius and prodigy, even through all his careful planning and research, it had all blown up in his face ... quite literally. Bloodline limits were a power that should not be taken lightly--one moment of carelessness with such power had disastrous, sometimes downright catastrophic, results. Bloodline limits were all powerful, some more than others. The simplest bloodline limit were the combining of two elemental affinities to create a new element--water and wind to make ice, water and earth to make wood, wind and fire to make firestorms, wind and earth to make sandstorms, and so on and so forth.

But the bloodlines of other clans were more powerful and thus more dangerous, to the user as well as the victim. Examples were the Hyuuga clan with their Byakugan eyes, and of course the Uchiha clan with their Sharingan eyes.

Right now Uchiha Itachi was cursing his clan's bloodline limit with every ounce of mental power he had that was not being rattled or assaulted by the sickening pain in his head. He had been so careful, so thorough--why had things ended up like this? He knew the how, that was easy enough to understand. But there was no easy way to accept what had happened to him, all because of his stupid Sharingan.

It just wasn't _fair._

Kisame handed him the towel he asked for. Itachi gently wiped his face on it, smelling and feeling the fresh blood on the cloth. He licked his lips, the coppery taste of blood on his tongue. Great. Just great. He took deep breaths, breathed in, breathed out. His eyes still bled and stung terribly, but pain was nothing new to him.

Beside him, he heard Kisame shift uncomfortably. Itachi was probably one of the only people on the face of the earth that could frighten the marine humanoid. Whatever Kisame had to say, he had better say it now, before Itachi decided to do anything rash.

"What is it, Kisame? Say it!"

Kisame rubbed his hands together, his blue skin dry. He wasn't accustomed to being in a place so devoid of moisture in the air, even though he had already been in the Akatsuki for a number of years now. It was hard enough adjusting to breathing with his lungs rather than his gills.

"Uhm ... Itachi-sama ... I think the only sure way to stop the bleeding is if we ..." he took a large gulp of breath, and if Itachi had been able to see properly, he would have grinned--right now Kisame looked very much like a gaping fish out of water.

" ... is if we burn the wound."

At this Itachi visibly stiffened, fists clenching the blood drenched towel. The next few moments were spent with Itachi spewing out all the most colorful curses he knew, teeth grit together to the point of generating sparks. This was why Itachi had wanted medical nin, not just powerful missing nin, to be included in the Akatsuki, but will the Leader, or Pein, his right hand man, listen? Nooooo.

"And, uh ..." Kisame's voice rasped hoarsely. "I don't have ... a fire chakra affinity."

Itachi swore vehemently. This was just insulting! Not only was he going to have to burn his own retinas to stop the damn bleeding, he was going to have to do it _himself_ because there were no Akatsuki medical nin or any other ninja nearby that had a fire chakra affinity!

_I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate my ..._

Nonetheless, it must be done. Itachi carefully dabbed at his eyes one more time before taking in a deep breath, summoning his chakra, the nature changing from a neutral one to that of flame. One of Uchiha's foremost abilities was the controlling of fire chakra affinity, and not one Uchiha didn't have a chakra nature that wasn't fire. Uchiha weren't considered adults, either, until they mastered at least one jutsu that incorporated the fire affinity.

So, being an Uchiha genius, controlling and manipulating fire chakra deftly was no hurdle. It was just that ... he had never intentionally burned himself before. He had gotten burned before, and that had hurt like a bitch. That time it was only his arm, but this was his face; his eyes!

" 'Twould be a shame if you bled to death because of this, Itachi-sama." Kisame said quietly.

If he wasn't already crying tears of blood, Itachi would have shed a tear or two.

Itachi breathed in deeply, and in one instant, the room flared with light.

Itachi, pressing the thoroughly blood soaked towel against his eyes, screamed.

"FUCK fuck fuck!"

Curses were the only vocabulary Itachi was capable of speaking for next hour and a half.

But Kisame was right--in a few hours, the bleeding had in fact stopped. Kisame had not left Itachi's side, something that the Uchiha was grateful for. Itachi leaned against the back rest of the chair he sat in, his mouth a jagged frown. His burned eyes still stung. After a few minutes of silence, Kisame said something to break the ice.

"I really wasn't expecting something like that. Not many Uchiha must have awakened Mangekyou Sharingan."

"No fuck." Itachi said savagely, rubbing his temples in an attempt to distract himself from the pain in his eyes. He thought he had prepared for this, when those secret scrolls had said that the prolonged use of Mangekyou would cause eventual blindness ...

Those damn scrolls never said a single thing about his eyes exploding.

Itachi understood how it happened--normal Sharingan already changed the eye severely into a condition it was not used to having. That also involved increasing the flow and density of chakra in the eyes, and that was dangerous as it was. Mangekyou Sharingan did exactly that, but its consequences were much more disastrous. Throw in that Uchiha nearly subconsciously changed their chakra affinity to fire, from a growth of chakra flow and density within the eyeball ...

"Kisame," Itachi sighed tiredly, "Please do the kind thing and put me out of my misery."

Kisame shook his head, then belatedly stopped, since the newly blind Itachi could not see it.

"I can't, Itachi-sama. You told me that no matter what, you had to die by Sasuke's hands. Humph, weird, that, but better than dying of illness, I suppose."

Of course, Itachi berated himself. And he had to get rid of the infection that was the curse mark ... he sighed, banging his head against a fist.

Sasuke was damn lucky he had Itachi for a big brother.


End file.
